beautiful, you're beautiful, as beautiful as the sun

[dragonladyflame]

Putting up this entry scares me more than anything else I've ever written here. I don't know what people will think of me. I'm superficial. I'm vain. I'm self-centered. I'm seeking attention. I'm a brainless bimbo

Comments

[robbat2]

Entirely relevant to your posting, and esp your prior employer hiring you due to cuteness: http://lafalafu.com/krc/privilege.html

[dragonladyflame]

That's an excellent link. Thank you.

[hazelsteapot]

thank you for writing this. I don't have a good response thought out or time to write one, but thank you. and... yeah. It resonates.

And, no, it's not weird or bad or shallow for you to think about beauty. You, of all people, shallow? Being shallow isn't about caring too much about appearance--it's about not caring about anything else.

when someone tells me, "You're very focused on your appearance," it makes me feel as though I have to make it up somehow, as though I have to prove my "appearance doesn't matter" cred. It makes me feel as though not wearing makeup, not shaving, is an obligation. It makes me feel as though even if I wanted to, I shouldn't start doing those things.

A gentleman recently told me that he loved how I don't shave my legs because it's like a statement of power ... a statement that I don't care... I'm tempted to say that his comment was nearly as repressive as any pro-shaving comment might be.Yes. ...The US has a very strange relationship to said cosmetic practices--while the culture requires femininity,

[dragonladyflame]

You, of all people, shallow?

awww ... I am very flattered.

Vanity is required but punished.

Yes. It always strikes me as so unbearable when people (usually men) will make comments about how hot some girl is, and then turn around and talk about how vain women are.

I suppose this is how society maintains norms ... by reinforcing a certain standard, and striking down people who outdo it. One could probably write a similar post to the above about nearly any societal expectation. But beauty, especially for women, feels particularly cruel. Have you ever read Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth?

[queenofolupitoo]

As I have written about in my lj also, I was surprised a few years ago when I realized I cared about being beautiful, that I wanted to be thought of as beautiful almost as much as I wanted to be thought of as intelligent or talented, and maybe more when it came to romantic relationships

[dragonladyflame]

Yeah, I always find it depressing/interesting when people who are alternative are still intolerant of other alternative choices/body types. Are you comfortable sharing exactly which deviant sexual practices these particular friends practice -- what subculture they're in?

[foxfour]

there's a part of me that's amazed you were so hesitant to write this, because it is fascinating. i'd love to talk with you about it in person, some time, because i really feel that the internet is not a venue for sufficiently in-depth discussion of it.

but remember the first words you said to me, which amounted (particularly to me at the time) to "you're beautiful." and i had no idea how to react, really.

just one note: i do try to think of beauty as context-dependent and varying from observer to observer. i think that i use such a relativistic approach to distance myself from it, and similarly avoid getting caught up in worrying about vanity and claiming something that isn't mine to claim.

[dragonladyflame]

Next time we see each other in person, eh? :grin:

And wow ... it is interesting, now that I think about it, how often I will praise/validate others' beauty, considering how weird and difficult a concept I find it myself. You are certainly beautiful, my dearest elf, but you are not the only person I have wandered up to and praised the beauty of. Sometimes I think I do this particularly to men, because I specifically want to force them to engage with this question that women deal with all the time .... But I do it to women, too.

[foxfour]

somehow, i never thought i was the only such person :) and that's why i brought it up.

[crywolf]

They say that beauty is only skin deep. Perhaps to some, this is true. But to those of us who aren't so shallow, it's much more than that.

I have looked at porn, and generally didn't like it, because of their fake plastic expressions. I look at faces, and if the face isn't right, the rest of the body is not at all "beautiful". I've looked at "hot" girls who looked ugly to me because of their vapid "I'm hot and I know it" expressions.

Real beauty is far more than just how you look. It's how you act, how you move, how you speak, how you smile, etc. It's your personality. No amount of aging can ever take that away from you. No one can take any part of this from you unless you let them.

[dragonladyflame]

Tangent: Out of curiosity, have you tried non-mainstream/alternative porn? Feminist porn? Porn that makes more of an effort at a storyline?

[crywolf]

Nah, I've never cared that much about it. The closest I've come to that is some of the porn comedies and spoofs (usually from the 70's). If I feel a desire to look at pretty girls, I'll just look at pictures of pretty girls.